In search of our summer song

It’s the quintessential tune that makes you feel carefree, even if the AC quits in your car and your thighs stick to the hot seat like Super Glue. The sweltering summer anthem is usually uptempo and always heavy on rotation everywhere you go.

If it’s really good, it could stay with you for the rest of your life, conjuring up memories of past freedoms, limitless possibilities, seasons in the sun.

Remember Beyoncé’s “Crazy In Love,” which played over and over again in the summer of 2003? I still smile when I hear those trumpets.

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Sometimes we don’t have a choice. The song is on summer repeat until we’re all annoyed by the shared experience. Cases in point: Last year’s “Call Me Maybe,” by Carly Rae Jepsen, or that summer of ’07, when “ella, ella” echoed in our heads underneath Rihanna’s “Umbrella.”

Since I became a mother, my summer songs have become even more nostalgic, marking time moving much too quickly. When my daughters were in diapers, I remember dancing with them around our kitchen on hot nights to Sheryl Crow’s “Soak Up the Sun.”

We’ve already started debating what will be this summer’s song. I nixed Daft Punk’s “Get Lucky.” Too soon out of the starting blocks. Plus, it’s a little disturbing singing with my young teenagers about staying up to get lucky. “Blurred Lines,” by Robin Thicke, with T.I. and Pharrell Williams, also creeps me out.

“Cruise,” the country song by Florida Georgia Line, has been around too long, and who rolls their windows down in Florida in the summer?

My daughters are convinced the Macklemore and Ryan Lewis same-sex marriage anthem “Same Love” has great power because we played it the morning before the U.S. Supreme Court struck down the Defense of Marriage Act.

But the real frontrunner – the one that makes us turn up the volume and forget about our to-do list – is “Beautiful,” by Mariah Carey with Miguel. This one makes me take the long way to get to work when it’s on.

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